The invention concerns a hospital bed or similar item of furniture to lay or sit on with a frame and a surface-bearing area for a mattress.
Frequently, in a hospital room several beds are set up and are occupied at the same time by sick persons. If the persons are seriously sick, they cannot leave their bed. Then, the whole life cycles of the patients take place in their beds. Patients are often helpless and they can only inadequately control or master the physiological process of their bodies. Therefore, it is difficult to avoid annoying odors that will develop and which might bother the other patients sharing the same room. Annoying odors can also develop from wounds or cuts or during change of surgical dressings. Those procedures will most of the time also bother the other patients sharing the room, because patients are usually sensitive to odors. Such odors are also annoying to visitors.